City Elm

This is a poem I've been working on recently. It was written after flipping through a few poems of Thomas Merton's and other Merton-inspired poetry. I like the contemplative nature of it, the man pacing the corner studying the bus, the narrator himself contemplating the tree's roots. Searching for a way to finish the poem, I imagined the roots, long settled underground, pushing their way toward the sun for nourishment, leaving cracks in the concrete. The image that came to mind was a sort of personification of the roots, sightless, feeling their way about the pavement. I thought of a child, unable to hold its eyes open, feeling its way about a crib, and how different this environment must be from the dark and the warmth of his mother's womb. Later on, I asked a friend to look over the poem. He pointed out a juxtaposition of old age and youth; the roots, likely as old as the city itself; the tree having lived at least since the concrete sidewalk was first set. And the newborn child, brand new to the earth, breathing on its own for the first time. Such are the roots in this poem, new to daylight and city air.

CITY ELM

On the corner of Fourth
and Oak, a man, contemplative
in a navy-blue cap, paces
the concrete, studying the bus
as it pulls to the curb and
stops. I wonder if he notices
the roots of the city elm
protruding from the earth?
Roots that after years of
silence, lying beneath the soil,
push toward the light
like a newborn, fingering
blindly the blankets
of an unfamiliar crib.